


breathe me

by orphan_account



Series: set me free [2]
Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PWP, Porn, Sappy, Self-Loathing, brolin - Freeform, wonky D/S
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 11:24:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Colin gets breathless with fear, Bradley is there to put him back together.—Or: An excuse for pseudo poetic PWP. (NC-17, 2k)</p>
            </blockquote>





	breathe me

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning** : unbeta’d; wonky D/S (as in, the D is someone who isn’t really a D but is trying to be one for the sake of the S); oh!, and lots of self-loathing
> 
>  **Disclaimer** : I have no legal right over any of them and any work featuring real people is merely a fictional account of my own making without claiming to have, at any point, actually occurred. No offence or anything similar is intended with this. It's a fictional account and no representation of anything that might/might not have occurred.
> 
>  **A/N** : I have no excuse. Self-indulgence, really (you could say: almost _mindless_ self-indulgence /headshot). Instinctive response to the one (recent?) Brolin pic I’ve seen on twitter/tumblr (read: emergence of the case of my special insanity). Dunno if it’s recent really, I’ve read it mightn’t be, but whatever. This fic is just a flight of fancy anyway (and _what_ a flight of fancy), has been written doped up on too many Brolin feels at 4.30am so don’t expect much. In a way, I guess it’s a continuation of my _set me free_ thingie, sappy!Bradley and paranoid!self-loathing!Colin (my new fav, apparently?!). Warnings include me making an attempt at humour (and gloriously failing; I suppose you could get your humour from just that) before digressing to my favourite shit: pseudo poetic porn without plot. That’s really what it is.
> 
> And I talk too much. Sorry. It’s 7am now. I’ll go to sleep. Idefk anymore. (Also sorry for the random lyrics down here and shit. I just like to do that kind of thing.)

_be my friend  
hold me, wrap me up  
unfold me  
warm me up  
and breathe me_

sia—breathe me

 

They spent Bradley’s last day in the UK before his trip to Australia together outside in public. Usually they wouldn’t; Colin would surreptitiously glance around them as they made their way to their favourite pub, restaurant or shop, always so hyper-aware of everything around them, expecting to get pappped at every corner or people to point their fingers at him and say “This guy is shagging the other one!” because he thought he was pretty much obvious by now in his adoration for Bradley. It certainly felt like he was—he hadn’t smiled quite all that often lately, but all it took was walking half an hour through London’s streets with Bradley by his side as they subtly (because they knew how to do subtle) made up life stories for the people around them.

There was a woman with three kids who was clearly going to try out for the Glarelypimcs ‘14, and Bradley had to drag Colin away from her because Colin had begun trying to nick his mobile to take a picture of the woman’s truly, truly impressive eyebrow-work. Bradley had just rolled his eyes and told Colin to get his own mobile with a camera one of these days—seeing as, _yes, Colin, it is indeed the twenty-first century by now_ —so then he wouldn’t need to abuse other people’s electronic devices to send funny things to Richard with dubious captions. There was a young man with a Superman shirt who, they deemed, was clearly attempting to tell the public that he belonged to the X-Men from the way he kept accosting girls, claiming he could move things inside his trousers by sheer force of will.

Colin felt that he and Bradley weren’t that much different from the strange kind of people they passed that afternoon—in fact, he spun a story in the thickest brogue he could muster, muttered from under his collar sideways to Bradley because _no one could know: this was dead secret_ , about how he, Colin, in his beanie, and Bradley in his ridiculous cap, were undercover elite pirate robbers checking out their next route of booty. Which clearly was an entire ship loaded with golden, delicious vinegar chips from their favourite pub. Bradley agreed, but insisted he wanted his own compartment against the evil influences of Colin’s wicked graminivorous ways, and so Colin sighed and allowed Bradley to have his metaphorical Chamber of Secrets filled, shamefully, with all things sinful meat. They were just discussing the kind of captain they’d want to hire for the ship when someone cleared their throat, interrupting Bradley in his tirade of how they needed to have one fluent in footie speech or else he’d be tempted to throw him out as fodder to the sharks in case he accidentally insulted Arsenal—

It was then that someone cleared their throat—two throats, actually—and interrupted them, saying “Bradley James” and “Colin Morgan” with the kind of distant awe Colin had come to resent just the slightest bit. He stilled, took a second to breathe in through his nose, and then turned to the two girls with a friendly, wide smile as his public persona slid right into place.

Right. This was why Bradley and him didn’t really do this kind of thing.

\--

He felt a little bit of the paranoia crawl into his muscles when they returned to his flat after that pretty soon. Bradley noticed the turn of his mood almost precisely to the second of its occurrence (which, now that he thought about it, was a little creepy) and surprised Colin with one of his obscure, scheming (but not really) attempts at claiming he was tired, and couldn’t they cut the night out short to spend a calmer one at home?

He’d agreed, of course he had, and spending time in bed with Bradley was one of his favourite things to do anyway.

Especially when it came to what Bradley called his kit on how to deal with paranoid Irishmen; Colin hated to admit that he loved that kit. But he did, so help him, he did: how could he not, really, when the anxiety sitting in his taut skin translated into a sense of overwhelming breathlessness and light-headedness brimming inside his chest, and Bradley helped him alleviate it? For he did—let his broader, stronger body sink onto Colin’s, his chest and stomach and legs becoming heavy weights as he let his muscles relax and soften so he could press himself flat along all over Colin’s back, weighing him down into the mattress until Colin was breathless with a new kind of feeling. Like this, he felt his skin smoothen with it, Bradley’s hot, damp breath against the shell of his ear becoming the externalised pulse of his own heart. The tension bled out of his body gradually as he allowed his head to sink forward into the pillow—nostrils flaring, the grounding sensation of being short of breath, the familiar darkness beginning to flood the corners of his eyes, all overpowering his fear.

There was nothing to fear, here, he knew—felt the knowledge of it grow and fill the marrow of his bones, firm, as Bradley pushed and settled in that tight, wonderful space inside him while his body moulded itself into the puzzle of Colin’s, fitting right against it. Colin was breathing open-mouthed into the pillow, narrow and cramped and secure, staring at the darkness surrounding him and coming to a standstill. This was his favourite part: being nothing but an extension of his consciousness, becoming more than he was, because he could leave his physical shell behind in Bradley’s care, because Bradley knew how to.

Knew how to fit his mouth against the tendons of Colin’s throat, working his plump, sensuous lips down along the points of tightness in Colin’s neck, sucking red smears into his skin, marring the pale stretch with his possessiveness, because in that moment, there was nothing, nobody else Colin belonged to. Bradley knew how to say silly, lovely things against the topmost knob of his spine, the centre between his shoulder blades, knew how to place a kiss there, soft and adoring like his words until it bled right through his skin and wrapped itself around Colin’s vertebrae, until the very thing keeping Colin’s body together, able to walk and act and react and be physically present, became Bradley’s hoarsely whispered “Darling,” his “Sweetheart,” his “Dear” —became his “Love,” the cornerstones of Colin’s very existence. Bradley knew how to adjust his breathing with Colin’s, how to temper out the too light working of his lungs with a stronger one, a rougher one; a harsh, irregular low panting that kept Colin’s mind from disintegrating into another sphere entirely by reminding him of the reality of the moment, of Bradley working on this mutual giving and taking of pleasure and easing the very responsibility of breathing off Colin’s lungs, letting his own breathing swell inside them instead, helping Colin’s chest expand with every cautious in- and exhalation.

Bradley knew how to shift his pelvis forward, how to meld his lower body to Colin’s until he filled him to the brim—knew how to tilt his hips just _so_ to brush all the places inside that sparked upon touch, that made Colin keen and gasp and shiver and shudder apart into so many pieces of delight.

Bradley, after obliterating even the slightest remaining sensation of crippling anxiety in Colin’s body so that Colin was pliant-loose and supple underneath him, knew how to keep his hands painful-tight around Colin’s forearms, fingers digging painfully into the softer flesh of the underside and forcing Colin’s arms to spread away from his body in wonky ‘L’s like inverted angel wings that lost their knowledge of how to fly on their own. Bradley knew how to help him fly, knew how to repair the brittle bones of his wings and knew how to care properly for the feathers as he kept Colin’s arms forced apart and stretched at an angle that _hurt_ —knew how to make him fly as the hurt seeped through Colin’s skin into his bloodstream, making it boil in a mad rush of blood, into his nerves, electrifying them with the thrill of it, and along the contours of his muscle fibres, setting them alight in just the right, perfect, harsh pull of pain.

Something Bradley did not know how to do was to bugger Colin into the mattress like Colin wanted him to—like Colin was that one whore he’d been given at the brothel because no one else was left, and he’d agreed to take him for the night anyway because he needed this, needed to fuck his aggression and resentment into a willing hole or two, brutal-fast and ruthless, because Colin deserved this—deserved this for being who he was, the disappointment that he was, deserved it for all the shame and fear he felt _outside_ , and Bradley ought to despise him. Ought to despise him for what he was doing, what he was making them do, what he was making _Bradley_ do, and he needed this punishment, needed it like he needed the air Bradley was pressing out of his body with his weight heavy-oppressive along Colin’s back. But this, this wasn’t something Bradley knew how to give.

Instead, Bradley knew how to graze his fingers over the blue-bruised skin of Colin’s forearms, knew how to curve them around his wrist, the inside of it. Knew how to lay his index, middle and ring finger along the pale stretch of skin over the blue branches of Colin’s veins, feeling him out—feeling out his pulse hammering against the thin skin there, hammering against the pads of Bradley’s fingers, insanely fast and frighteningly alive. The echo of the emotions warring within Colin’s mind was reflected there, at this point of connection, and his self-flagellation, self-recrimination, self-loathing… all the broken threads of his self centred there, pooling in a frenzy, and Bradley felt it all, felt it pulse and race like the quake of desperation it was and like the plea for forgiveness it wasn’t, because Colin wouldn’t ask for forgiveness, Bradley knew this, knew Colin thought he wasn’t worth it.

Yet he gave it anyway, because he knew how to. He didn’t know how to do many things, but this, this was something he knew—knew how to answer Colin’s non-question with his shuddery breath to Colin’s cheek, his stuttering the words to Colin’s heart, “Thank you for this,” as he pressed his fingertips into Colin’s wrist and felt his life pulsing there, hard and desperate and _unworthy_ , Colin _moaning_ with the unworthiness of himself until Bradley, wanting to trap Colin’s rabbity heartbeat in his fingertips so he would feel him always, pressed just a little harder down, harder, harder, and hissed against Colin’s ear, “This is beautiful.”

And Colin, Colin, he—allowed his head to raise, tilt to the side. Allowed his eyes to open, to watch Bradley’s fingers intertwine with his at last, a shade darker and more golden of skin than his own, wrapping around his own like they were his mould and fusing together with them at last, and Colin—he thought, Yes.

Yes, it is.


End file.
